Resolutions

I'm not big on making resolutions.  Like most people, they seem to fizzle out and fade away after a couple of months of trying to keep them going.  But I'm going to do my best to make 2010 different :)

My main resolution is just to stick with it when it comes to weight loss and exercise.  The end of 2008 and most of 2009 has shown me things I already knew about myself, but in a big way.  Beginning at Thanksgiving of 2008 we seemed to go into a never ending year of turmoil skipping from one catastrophe to another.  I already knew I was an emotional eater and I knew if a roadblock was thrown up exercise would go straight out the window.  Boy did it ever :(  It was not even hit and miss in 2009, it was miss, miss, miss, miss, ding, miss, miss, hit, ding, miss, miss, miss, miss.....you get the idea LOL 

So, I know that with parents who are not getting any younger (they were our first stressors at the end of 2008 with dad ending up in the hospital and having very complicated surgery and us nearly losing him and with that went a very long, drawn out recovery), kids - 3 of them, ranging in age from 16 to 11 to 6, a husband who not only works full time 50+hour weeks most weeks but we also operate a farm (grain operation) and then just add in all the little daily things that pop up for a SAHM that I'll never have a 'normal' day or a set in stone schedule I can stick with.  So it's going to have to be the baby steps I mentioned yesterday. 

First baby step is just to get back into the routine of exercise on a daily basis.  I realize there will be days I will have no choice but to miss, but overall I want to exercise more days a week than I don't.  Baby step #1.  Baby step #2 is to keep up eating as well as we can.  DH is a Type 2 Diabetic.  I'm not perfect in this area, but I do my absolute best to make sure our meals are balanced in a way that is healthy for him.  Funny how I'm able to do that so much easier for him than if it were me that were diabetic.  (That'll be a baby step later in the year, I promise :) )

Once I feel comfortable with baby step #1 (baby step #2 is pretty well ingrained, just need to keep it first and foremost as always) I'll move on to more baby steps.  Some of the baby steps involve getting other areas of my life under control.  Overall I'm a pretty well organized person.  I can think my house is a wreck, but give me 15 minutes of decluttering and it's a pretty clean place.  But there are the projects that could help out with my weight loss efforts that keep getting pushed to the back burner that I need to tackle.  And the biggest one is organizing my recipes.  I've been "working" on this for at least a couple of years and never found a good solution.  I think I have a plan of action laid out now and am going to work on it as soon as I'm done blogging here actually.  I've found some small binders that will fit on the shelf of my hutch in the kitchen were I keep my cookbooks.  Each binder will hold recipes for certain categories (ie one binder will be devoted to main dishes, another to salads, soups, veggies and sides etc)  I know once I can actually FIND all my recipes again it will make meal planning a lot easier.  And if meal planning is easier, I have a plan of action for those nights when my 6 yo DD has ballet and we don't get home until late and I end up grabbing pizza or something equally diet smashing on the way home just to get some food into my kids before we ram through homework, baths and put them to bed.  If I can get a plan of action and have at least some meals planned out and ready to go for the nights I know are going to be hectic, life will be so much easier in so many ways.  That's the biggest place I've struggled this past year.  Most of my weight gain is from not exercising.  I know I can't lose if I don't exercise.  It just doesn't happen for this body.  But I also can't lose if I'm always stressed and thinking about food every waking hour trying to come up with something fast and easy (which w/o planning almost always equates to not so healthy) to fix for supper.  So baby step #3 is organize my recipes which I really think will make steps #1 and #2 fall into place so much easier for me. 

So those are my big resolutions as of now.  I'll add more as the year stretches on.  I don't want to lay too many in front of me right now.  I tend to get distracted and try to shuffle priorities.  These 3 are the biggest priorities I have right now.  Meal planning, exercise and eating healthy.  Once those feel like they are 'set' I'll pick another one or two to add to the mix :)